


Scars

by sorrowfulcheese



Series: Sex, Lies, and Misanthropy [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:25:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrowfulcheese/pseuds/sorrowfulcheese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nearly a year post-game, Shepard has healed. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

    She dreamed, as always, of fire and death, of the screams of the millions she could not save. She could not wake from the dream; the Catalyst kept her there, forced her to choose.  
  
    It had been so easy to make that decision, once, her vision so clear. Now it was impossible. Too many factors. Too many people affected. Too much death—  
  
    A gun whined softly as it was drawn and Shepard moved in her sleep, woke as she stood and leaped silently to the cabin door, a pistol in hand, drawn from beneath her pillow.  
  
    She recognised the figure that stood looking back into the woods, recognised the rifle in his hand because she had given it to him.  
  
    Of course they would send _him_ to take her down; no one else had the skills, the knowledge, to kill her. No one else had killed as many men as he. No one ever came out alive from an encounter with him.  
  
    She had never wanted to pit her skills against his but now—  
  
    She sped through the doorway and through the snow toward him, just as he turned and looked up at her. "Shepard," he said, and he looked suddenly alarmed.  
  
     _So you should_ , she thought, and slammed into him with her whole weight. He cursed and lost his rifle and skidded beneath her on the snow; Shepard clamped her knees tightly to either side of his ribcage. She struck his head twice rapidly with the pistol, then grabbed his throat with one hand and with the other put the muzzle of the gun to his head.  
  
    "Who hired you, Zaeed?" she demanded.  
  
    He stared up at her, turned his head to one side and spit blood into the snow. "What the hell, Shepard? No one hired me."  
  
    She struck him hard again with the pistol, jammed the muzzle against his temple and thrust her face close to his. "Who. Hired. You."  
  
    His gloved fist caught her under the jaw and knocked her head back, forced her hand free of his throat; he caught her wrist before she could grab him again, but he didn't attempt to hit her a second time.  "No one fucking hired me, Shepard," he growled. "I'm not here to kill you." He didn't move, just held her wrist and watched her, his green eye dark, the other blank. She stared down at him.  
  
    "Then why are you here?" she asked through her teeth.  
  
    "Why d'you _think_ I'm here, you crazy bitch?" he snapped.  
  
    The pistol still pressed to his temple, her knees tight to his side, she searched his face. Zaeed wasn't subtle, preferred to race in with guns ablaze. He wouldn't lie here beneath her only to shoot her in the back once she let him up. If he had come to kill her, he would still be trying. In his own way, Zaeed was an honourable man.  
  
    "You didn't come here to kill me," she said at last, "or bring me back for court-martial?"  
  
    "Have I ever lied to you, Shepard?" he asked, crossly.  
  
    "No," she admitted. "You never have." She lifted the pistol and sat back on him, sober. "So why'd you come?"  
  
    He pushed himself up on his elbows, exhaled and looked her up and down. "Well, if I'd known you'd greet me with a pistol-whipping while dressed like _this_ , I might've come sooner," he said drily.  
  
    Shepard looked down at her T-shirt, wet from the snow, her bare legs. "Shit," she sighed. She hadn't noticed the cold, but now she shivered. "I was taking a nap," she told him. "I heard your gun and I didn't have time to put on pants."  
  
    Zaeed pushed himself to sit up and Shepard shifted her weight so she straddled his legs. "I didn't fire my weapon," he told her.  
  
    "I heard it whine," Shepard said. "When you pulled it out. The Mattock, right?"  
  
    "Right," he said.  
  
    "If you aren't here to kill me," she went on, "why'd you have your rifle out?"  
  
    "I heard something, thought it was an ambush. Turned around, saw a fox in the trees." His face softened a moment. "Beautiful little thing. Never saw one before, outside the vids."  
  
    "They like to play in the snow," Shepard said. She shivered again.  
  
    "You going to invite me in, Shepard?" he said. "Or are you waiting for me to leave before you go back in?"  
  
    "Come in," she said, and stood. Zaeed stood and cast about in the snow for his rifle; Shepard picked up his duffel.  
  
    "Hey," he said, stern, "I'll take that." He moved swiftly to her, the Mattock in hand, and reached for the duffel.  
  
    "I can lift it," she assured him.  
  
    "Sure you can," he said, "but I don't trust you not to try and touch Jessie."  
  
    "Paranoid."  
  
    "I know you, Shepard. Not a gun in the galaxy you haven't tried to get your hands on."  
  
    She let him take the duffel, lifted her hands defensively. "I know how much she means to you." He grunted acknowledgement of this, hefted the duffel, and turned to walk behind her as she headed for the still-open door of the cabin.  
   
    He hadn't changed. His hair was still neatly-cropped, his face clean-shaven; he still smelled like guns and aftershave, and despite the cold her body was reacting to that smell. _Still reacting_ , Shepard amended her thoughts. She took a deep breath as she stepped inside the cabin.  
  
    When Zaeed had joined her she locked the door behind them. He dropped his duffel unceremoniously on the floor, looked around the cabin's main room. "This is nice," he said. "Cosy."  
  
    It was; her father had built it for her mother, and Hannah Shepard had always loved the place. The main room took up most of the ground floor, and in the centre of it was a sunken fireplace, its chimney leading straight up through the ceiling. Arranged around the fireplace were two couches, one still warm from Shepard's nap, and three easy chairs, with occasional tables between them. The walls were lined with bookshelves. One corner of the room had been separated by a half-wall, to form a tiny galley kitchen containing a small refrigerator, a stove and a sink; a window over the sink looked out into the forest. In the opposite corner of the main room a discreet door led to a small washroom, with a bath, sink and toilet and a pulse washer for clothing. In a third corner a ladder led up to the loft above, where the bedroom was located.  
  
    Zaeed made his way across the main room, tracking snow as he went, toward the fireplace. He squatted with his back to Shepard and held his hands toward the heat a moment, then glanced over his shoulder at her. "How long you been here, Shepard?"  
  
    "Eight months." She tiptoed around the puddles of melting snow he'd left in his wake and crouched beside him in the fire's warmth and inhaled the scent of him and wished—  
  
    "What happened?" he asked her then, quietly, soberly.  
  
    Her toes were numb. Shepard sat down facing the fire, reached for her feet and began to rub them, to get the circulation going. "You know what happened. The Reapers fell."  
  
    "Yeah, but what happened to you?" Zaeed reached past her to grab one ankle, turned her on the floor to face him and sat with his legs to either side of her hips and her feet in his lap. He removed his gauntlets and wrapped warm fingers around her foot.  
  
    Shepard shook her head. "It's not something I can describe," she told him. "I had to make a decision, and I made it." His hands were strong and sure and she flushed a little.  
  
    "I get that part, Shepard," Zaeed said. "What happened to you, that you were reported dead?" He didn't rub her feet so much as caress them, and the heat of his hands was soothing as the circulation returned painfully to her toes.  
  
    "I don't know that part," she replied, and watched his hands a moment. "Some asari commando team found me and took me off-world. Took me to a salarian facility, me and my mother, and they put me back together there. But I was in a coma for all that. Three months."  
  
    "And then you woke up?"  
  
    "And then I woke up."  
  
    Zaeed turned his attention to her other foot. "And you came here."  
  
    "My father built this place when I was a baby. We came here sometimes. Not often, because my parents didn't often get leave together. But it's safe, so my mother gave me the keys and I've been here since. She sends me supplies once a month."  
  
    He nodded, thoughtful. "Reapers left it alone."  
  
    "No one living up here. They had no reason to come this far."  
  
    "I'm glad you made it, Shepard," he told her gruffly. "Heard a lot of rumours about you surviving. Half didn't want to believe it, in case it wasn't true." He kept his hands cupped around her foot.  
  
    She cocked her head to one side. "How did you find me?"  
  
    He shrugged. "Liara," he admitted.  
  
    "She knows?"  
  
    "It's her job, isn't it?"  
  
    "And she just told you?"  
  
    "She bled me dry for the goddamn coordinates," he grumbled.  
      
    She flushed again. "You—paid her yourself?"  
  
    "Stubborn bitch wouldn't give me the coordinates otherwise," he said with another shrug. They sat looking at one another for nearly a minute.  
  
    Before she knew it Shepard was on her back and Zaeed was half in and half out of his armour and all the way inside her. She wrapped her arms around his head and clung to him as he thrust and bucked and swore atop her, fierce and wanting, and she drove her heel into the small of his back, demanded more. They came almost at the same time, breathless, and Shepard planted her other foot and arched up off the floor as Zaeed sank his perfect teeth into her shoulder. She saw spots for several seconds after they had sagged back down beside the fire.  
  
    "Shit," Zaeed gasped, "shit. Goddamnit, Shepard, I didn't come here for that. Christ."  
  
    "Why are you here, then?" Shepard panted.  
  
    "I heard you were alive," he said, and dropped his forehead to her shoulder. "It just made sense to find you. I didn't think past that. Goddamnit, Shepard, you in _your goddamn pink knickers_ —"  
  
    "I have other colours," she told him, "if that'll help."  
  
    They both laughed at that, and they eased away from one another, rolled to lie on their backs, sweat drying tight on their skin in the heat from the fire. Zaeed had her panties in his hand. "I might just keep these," he said, as he lifted them up over his head and looked them over in the light. "For the long cold nights, you know."  
  
    "You may _not_ keep my panties," Shepard informed him as she snatched the lacy fabric from him. "They're part of a set." She tossed them in the general direction of the wash room, and she and Zaeed lay quietly together a moment.  
  
    "Now what?" Zaeed wondered at last.  
  
    Shepard sat up. "I'm hungry," she said. "You?"  
  
    "I could eat."  
  
    "I'll wash up and make something."  
  
    Zaeed snorted a laugh, sat up and looked at her. "You cook?"  
  
    "It's mostly heat and serve. I usually just stand over the sink and cram it in."  
  
    "I'd like to see that."  
  
    "I bet you would." She stood and crossed to the wash room door, scooped up her panties on the way. She removed her T-shirt—wet from the snow and from her own sweat—and her bra, tossed everything into the pulse washer for later. She scrubbed down quickly at the sink, rubbed herself dry with a clean towel, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she turned; Zaeed was leaning silently against the doorframe, watching her. He had removed the rest of his armour and wore only the black underarmour, his arms bare to show off hard muscles beneath starkly-tattooed skin.  
  
    "What?" she said.  
  
    "Didn't say a word," he assured her.  
  
    "I'm going to get dressed."  
  
    "Not stopping you," he said, but he didn't move away from the door. Shepard felt suddenly self-conscious.  
  
    "What?" she repeated.  
  
    He shook his head, stood straight. "Just thinking that I've never seen you in the altogether before. You're a beautiful woman, Shepard."  
  
    She looked down at her scarred body, at the growing bruises that showed the lines of Zaeed's armour, and made a little face. "I've taken a lot of damage," she said. "It's not pretty."  
  
    Zaeed shook his head again, took a step toward her and set one hand on her hip, curled one around the back of her neck. "Scars," he said, "are just receipts for all the shit you've come through. You told me that once." He drew her close to him, rested his unmarred cheek against hers; his breath on her neck was as close to a kiss as Zaeed had ever offered her. Shepard closed her eyes and savoured the embrace.  
  
    He patted her behind then, almost affectionately, and let her go. "Get dressed," he muttered, and wheeled to stalk back to the main room. Shepard watched him go, then slipped out of the wash room to climb the ladder to the loft. She dressed rapidly and combed her hair, pulled it into a ponytail; she slid down the ladder and found Zaeed sitting thoughtfully on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees and his eyes distant as he stared at the fire.  
  
    Shepard left him there, moved to the the little galley, and prepared a couple of meals for them. 

* * *

  
    Zaeed was shaken from reverie when Shepard thrust a plate of hot food beneath his face. He blinked and looked at her, then at the food. "Thanks, Shepard," he said, and took the plate. They ate quietly with no other sound in the room but the crackling of the fire. When she had finished her own meal, Shepard set the plate on the floor, slid to her knees to poke at the fire with an iron; from a small woodpile nearby she grabbed a short log and stuffed it inside. In a few minutes the fire roared brightly and Shepard sat up on the couch again.  
  
    He finished his food and set the plate on a side table next to the couch. He stretched, slid to slouch down with the soles of his feet pointing to the fireplace, and he folded his hands over his belly. "What d'you do here every day?" he wondered.  
  
    Shepard curled up with her feet beneath her, one elbow resting on the back of the couch and her cheek on her hand. He felt her eyes on him, knew if he looked up they would be almost black in the firelight. "I sleep a lot," she said. "I read. I chop wood sometimes. I go running naked in the woods at night." He turned his head to see her, dubious, and Shepard smiled. "But only during the full moon."  
  
    "You must be bored goddamn shitless," he said.  
  
    "For a long time," she told him, softly, "no. It was—surprisingly nice to wake up every day and know that it didn't matter to anyone if I got up or didn't. That the world wasn't waiting for me to do something."  
  
     _One person_ , he thought, _should never have to carry the literal weight of the world on her shoulders_. But it was foolish to think that, because Shepard had done it, had carried the world through the fires of hell and had emerged victorious. "And now?"  
  
    "Now I've started to feel like I need to go somewhere. Do something."  
  
    Zaeed nodded, returned his gaze to the fire. That was more like Shepard. She had been born in space, had once confessed to him that being on land for too long gave her itchy feet.  
  
    "What have _you_ been doing for a year?" she asked him.  
  
    What to say? He sighed, shook his head. "Picked up a couple jobs here and there," he said. "Everyone bleats about all races and peoples coming together to defeat a common enemy, but there are still plenty of people out there more than happy to take advantage of a situation. So I put down a couple of coups, cleared out some looters and profiteers, that sort of thing. The kind of work I did before you ever showed up to drag me along to bigger things." He shrugged.  
  
    "When did you find out about me? _How_ did you find out about me?"  
  
    "I have ears," he said tersely. "People talk."  
  
    "What people?"  
  
    "People always talk, Shepard," he said. "No matter how dangerous a secret they have, no matter the consequences, people can't keep their goddamn mouths shut." He sat up, half-turned toward her, rested his own elbow on the back of the couch and watched her. "So I listened, and I realised before long that in the midst of all the bullshit, in all the wishful thinking, there was a thread of the truth. So I followed it a little ways, until I came to the end of it, and I had to backtrack a bit and pick up the thread again, and follow it in a different direction. I learned you were found alive by some asari, that you were taken off-world. After that I couldn't find any records of you coming back."  
  
    "So you went to Liara."  
  
    "So I went to Liara," he agreed. "I sent her a message and she sent that Feron fellow to pick me up and haul me to her new digs—"  
  
    "Liara has a new base?"  
  
    "She does."  
  
    "Where is it?"  
  
    "Don't know. Feron made sure I couldn't see anything going in or coming out. Goddamn little toy ship he flies is barely big enough for him, so I was crammed in there with my stuff, easy enough for him to keep me from finding out." He rolled one shoulder and grimaced. It ached a little since  
  
     _she had looked so much like Shepard that he'd hesitated and she'd shot him in the shoulder and he'd nearly lost hold of his rifle but he knew Shepard wouldn't have shot him so he'd recovered quickly and shot her between the eyes and then he'd gone to the body to be sure_  
  
    "So Liara had you brought to her base, what then?"  
  
    He blinked, shook his head a little. "Then she gave me the goddamn third degree about why I wanted to know where you were."  
  
    "What did you tell her?"  
  
    "Just that I wasn't on a job, had no intention of killing you, and that she needed to drop her price for old time's sake."  
  
    Shepard chuckled at that. "How did she react?"  
  
    Zaeed made a face, and then said in falsetto, " _There is no 'old time's sake' between you and me, Zaeed_." Shepard laughed out loud at that and Zaeed could not help but smile because Shepard hardly ever laughed. "I convinced her, though," he went on. "Found out something about her that she doesn't want to get out."  
  
    Liara's skin, a shade darker than it had ever been; Liara's breasts, fuller than a maiden's breasts ought to be; her hips, wider than before. He had guessed, rightly, that in the last moment they'd shared on Earth, she had conceived Shepard's child—  
  
     _Would Shepard want to know?_  
  
 _Would Shepard want to raise the child?_  
  
 _Would Shepard—?_  
  
    Her voice cut through his thoughts. "—might have had you killed, Zaeed. You shouldn't threaten her." Shepard's fingers rested on his arm, light and warm.  
  
    "Yeah," he said, distantly. He looked up at her again, and her blue eyes were impenetrable in the dim light.  
  
    "Tell me a story," she said.  
  
    "What?"  
  
    "Tell me one of your stories. Tell me what you did while I was out. While I was here." She gestured to the room, shifted closer to him. "I've missed hearing your war stories."  
  
    "You've got stories of your own, you know."  
  
    "Yes, but you were there for most of those."       
  
    He shifted to get more comfortable, thought a moment. Shepard waited.  
  
    He told her about those first days after the Reapers fell, before communications systems had been restored, before anyone knew about anything that they couldn't see with their own eyes. How he'd been stuck on Earth far longer than he'd ever wanted to be, stuck with all the people, living and dead, more people than he ever wanted to have around him. How he'd helped a little, to clean up, to bring assistance to the needy; how he'd bolted the moment a ship left the planet because—  
  
     _because Shepard wasn't there any longer and he'd only gone there for Shepard_  
  
    —there was work to be done on other planets, in other systems, cleanup work mostly. Taking down profiteers and pirates and anyone else who had escaped the Reapers and started gouging those who had no money, no food, no medicine or homes or even clothes on their backs. He told her about the woman who had looked like her, the one who had shot him in the shoulder. He told her that it had made him want to find out for sure if she was alive, so he could know. Because he hated uncertainty and if an answer could be had, and if Liara could provide it—  
  
    "A woman who looked like me, shot you in the shoulder, and that made you want to find me?"  
  
    "Don't read anything into it, Shepard," Zaeed grumbled. "I'd already heard you were alive, and seeing her just—made me want to know for sure. That's all."  
  
    "Do you remember," Shepard said suddenly, "the party I had, at the apartment on the Citadel?"  
  
    "I remember."  
  
    Shepard rose to her knees, stretched out one leg and before he knew it she was straddling his lap.  
  
   _goddamnit Shepard I am only a man_  
  
    He'd told her she was beautiful, at the party, that he'd always thought so. She had hiked up that skintight black dress and straddled him just as she was doing now, and he had fucked her right there on the couch, in front of the fire, and not a single person at the party had walked in on them, no one had heard their suffocated breath against one another's shoulder, the soft whimper that Shepard had been unable to suppress completely.  
  
    Zaeed slid his hands around behind her now, beneath the waistband of her loose pants, beneath her clean panties _what colour were they this time?_ and he shifted his weight, savoured the warmth of her through their clothes, the ache of himself throbbing between them.  
  
     _You shouldn't be doing this Massani she's half your age and—_  
  
 _—and what?_  
  
    And she was tugging at his shirt to get it over his head and nobody ever said no to Commander Shepard. Nobody ever wanted to.  
  
    He withdrew his hands and let her get his shirt off and he waited while she examined his tattoos, her fingers trailing over his arms and shoulders and chest, her eyes gleaming. "I've never seen you all naked either," she told him, and she sat back to pull off her own shirt. She unfastened her bra and tossed it over the back of the couch and Zaeed caught her little breasts in his hands, leaned up to flatten his tongue on one nipple. Shepard braced herself with her hands on his shoulders and made a sound as he engulfed her breast with his mouth. He slurped free a moment later and looked up and Shepard looked down at him, her face flushed, her mouth soft, and Zaeed wanted nothing more than to remember the moment forever.  
  
    He turned, lowered her to lie on the couch, yanked her trousers and her panties down over her hips; Shepard squirmed to kick them off entirely. Zaeed caught her knee and rested it over his shoulder, slid down and pressed his tongue between her legs, savoured the taste of her. He parted the soft folds with his tongue, tickled and teased her, used his lips and teeth and Shepard made inarticulate noises. He hooked his arms around her thighs to keep her from clamping them against his ears, forced her legs apart and kissed them each in turn, delved once more into that hot centre. Shepard began to shake and thrust up against his face and Zaeed held her down. He drew his wet tongue up at last to her swollen clitoris, touched it lightly and she cried out. He closed his lips around it, inhaled through his mouth and the cool air was the last straw for her; she arched up and Zaeed could hardly keep hold of her as her thighs closed like a vise on either side of his head, as she thrust against his mouth and shouted.  
      
    He was about to suffocate when she finally, still shaking, lowered her hips to the couch and released his head. Gently he kissed her, eked out a few more trembling whimpers, then crawled up over her, dropped wet kisses on her skin as he went. Shepard opened her eyes, grabbed his ears and pulled him down to her, kissed his mouth passionately. Zaeed was startled by it; she'd never actually kissed him before. Her tongue washed over his teeth, twined with his tongue, and he closed his eyes for just a moment.  
  
    Shepard moved beneath him, hooked a leg around his hips, guided him into her with a sweet twist of her body, and Zaeed concentrated on breathing evenly, forced himself to have a measure of control as he rocked with her, thrust slow and steady, to make it last as long as possible—  
  
    Shepard grabbed his ass and squeezed and ground up hard against him and groaned. "God," she whispered into his ear. "This is better than I imagined."  
  
    "It's not—the first time, Shepard," he said, his jaw tight.  
  
    "First time we've had—ah!—all the time we want—" Shepard arched her back a little and made a sound deep in her throat.  
  
    His balls clenched. "Oh, Christ," he swore through his teeth as conscious thought was superseded by the tingle of incipient joy. He was aware of Shepard beneath him, still writhing up against him, of the warmth of the fire dwarfed by the heat of her body sheathing him in a pulsing caress. All else vanished as he came with a shout, and for a moment he was sure he blacked out.  
  
    They fell to the couch together, breathing heavily. Shepard continued to move beneath him, using him to get herself off again, and he was gratified when she shuddered and stiffened, internal muscles rippling around him. She sighed and relaxed and caught her breath.  
  
    He shifted and turned so they were lying on their sides, facing one another, and his back was to the fire. Shepard's breathing slowed and deepened. Zaeed inhaled and sighed.  
  
   _Goddamnit, Massani, you said you wouldn't do this again._  
  
 _Fuck off. I know what I'm doing._  
  
 _Do you?_

* * *

  
    Shepard woke desperately cold, realised she was alone on the couch. She sat up; the fire had nearly died out.  
  
    She fumbled for the blanket she normally used when she was napping but it was not on the back of the couch. She muttered a curse and stood, teeth chattering.  
  
    "Shepard?" Zaeed came out of the wash room, towelling his arms dry. "Didn't wake you, I hope."  
  
    "Fire's out," she said, shivering. "Cold woke me up."  
  
    Zaeed looked back into the wash room and tossed the towel behind him. He had dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and long trousers. "Had to piss, took the chance to wash up," he said as he crossed the room toward her. "Sticky, you know." He nodded to the fireplace. "I'll build up the fire," he suggested. "Maybe you can put something on and warm up a bit."  
  
    "Do you even know how to build a fire?" she asked him.  
  
    "Get dressed, smartass," he said and stalked to the fireplace. Shepard tiptoed rapidly to the washroom, filled the sink with hot water and scrubbed herself hurriedly. She found Zaeed's discarded towel and used it to dry herself, drained the sink and slipped out of the washroom and up the ladder to the loft bedroom.  
  
    Still shivering, she pulled on warm pyjamas and then untied her hair, brushed it and braided it quickly. She looked at herself in the mirror over the dresser, thoughtful. She opened the top drawer and stared in at her father's things, which neither she nor her mother had bothered to touch since his death. She shut the drawer and slid down the ladder.  
  
    The fire was burning brightly and Shepard scampered toward it, crouched beside Zaeed and held out her hands to warm them with a happy sigh.  
  
    "Better?" Zaeed asked with amusement. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him.  
  
    "Yes thanks," she said, and let him hold her. Her shivering stopped soon, and she sighed. In silent accord, the two of them rose and sat on the couch. Her blanket lay folded over the back of the couch—Zaeed, she realised, must have put it there—and Shepard pulled it down, wrapped it around her shoulders.  
  
    "Nothing for me?" Zaeed protested.  
  
    Shepard held up the blanket and Zaeed pulled it around his shoulders, pressed close to her. "You really _are_ a snuggler," she accused him as he wrapped an arm around her beneath the blanket.  
  
    "Of course I am," he said. "Why would you possibly think otherwise?"  
  
    "I thought you were just using it as a ploy."  
  
    "For what?"  
  
    "Trying to seduce Samara." She leaned on him.  
  
    He chuckled. "It works with some women," he said. "It was worth a shot, anyway."  
  
    "Well, she's forsworn a lot of things, even snuggling. You do get points for the valiant effort, though."  
  
    "Thanks," Zaeed said drily, and pressed his face against her hair. They sat watching the fire until the cabin was warmed up again. Then she banked it properly and led Zaeed up to the loft bedroom for the night. 

* * *

    Shepard dreamed badly, twitched and muttered in her sleep. Each time she woke him in the night he reached up to stroke her hair, her cheek, and it calmed her, but it did not stop the dreams from recurring.  
  
    At one point she inhaled and her breathing grew shallow. Zaeed waited, watching the darkness in her direction. "It doesn't go away, does it," Shepard said softly.  
  
    "Never," he replied. "It gets easier, though. It's always just a job."  
  
    "I made decisions," she said, "that got people killed."  
  
    "That's the job."       
  
    "I made decisions that killed entire species."  
  
    "How d'you figure?"  
  
    She sighed, shifted a little in the bed. "I chose—I had to choose. What I chose killed all the geth. And EDI."  
  
    He considered a moment. "They say war is hell, Shepard," he told her quietly. "What they don't know is just how accurate that is for the people that fight it. It always comes down to people like you, the important ones, the ones that outshine the rest of us. You have to make the decisions that allow the rest of us to live or die. No one ever hears about that, of course. History gets written by men who didn't even fight, and they clean it all up, make it look pretty. You'll be a saviour in the books and the geth will be a footnote, and in a hundred years no one will remember who EDI even was, or how she came to life the way she did." He reached for her beneath the blankets, and she let him pull her close. "And while they're writing their books about you being the great Commander Shepard who saved the goddamn galaxy, they don't realise how it's all changed you. Made you into someone else."  
  
    "Fuck," she sighed.  
  
    "Yeah," he agreed.  
  
    "How do you deal?"  
  
    "I never had to do anything on a galactic scale, Shepard. It's easy for me to take my pay and go get drunk and maybe fuck a pretty girl in some hotel somewhere, and get up in the morning and go looking for another job." It was his turn to sigh. "But I think that mostly it's the same sort of therapy. You take your pay and go get drunk and fuck a pretty girl and go looking for the next job. Otherwise you'll go mad thinking about it."  
  
    "Can I fuck a misanthropic old merc instead?"  
  
    "If you can find one you like," he said, "yeah, that would probably do just fine." She laughed a little and sighed again and fell quiet. Zaeed listened to her breathing, stared into the darkness and could not rid his mind of a vision of Shepard, lithe and strong and wicked at his side while they worked the Terminus Systems. Shepard, wielding her goddamn Widow—never intended for humans to fire—as easily as though it was a pistol.  
  
    Shepard, young and beautiful and making him feel young beside her.  
  
    "Whenever you're ready, Shepard," he said softly, "why don't we go look for work together? Take your mind off things."  
  
     _You said you weren't going to do that again. All your partners try to kill you sooner or later._  
  
 _Fuck off. Shepard won't try._  
  
 _She'll do the job right the first time, like she always does._  
  
 _Exactly._  
  
    Comforted by that thought, Zaeed closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

* * *

    In the morning they ate everything they could stuff into themselves, and packed the rest into insulated bags. Shepard ran the pulse washer for a cycle to get all their clothing clean. The fire was permitted to go out and Shepard scooped out the ashes and coals, took them outside and dropped them into the snow.  
  
    The windows were locked tightly and covered; the bed was made, military-tight. Shepard swept the floors and Zaeed drained all the pipes, cursing as he had to contort to reach into small spaces.  
  
    Shepard packed a backpack for herself, retrieved her rifles from a storage cabinet hidden beneath the bed in the loft.  
  
    At the door she turned and pressed her hand to the solid wood—no part of the place was pre-fab, it was all wood and stone—and said a brief goodbye. She locked the door, hefted her bag on her back and looked at Zaeed.  
  
    "You sure?" he wondered.  
  
    Shepard smiled and beckoned to him and he leaned down. She whispered into his ear and Zaeed straightened, stared at her.  
  
    "Goddamnit, Shepard," he sputtered. "You shouldn't say such a thing to a man when he's got to walk!"  
  
    She snorted rudely and turned to lead him away from the cabin.

**Author's Note:**

> You wouldn't believe me if I told you how this story came to exist in my mind. So I won't tell you, because that other iteration might come into being.
> 
> I liked how the finished work feels a little sparse and maybe episodic. I had written long and descriptive bits including Shepard's healing and Zaeed meeting up with Liara, but they felt really... too much for two people who simply want to get in, get the job done, and get out. So I cut them. I like knowing that they're there - it helps me envision things better! 
> 
> In the end, the whole thing is silly and terribly romantic, so forgive me. I do like Zaeed's mushy side <3


End file.
